


Five Things About Prince Xav Vorbarra

by AellaIrene



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Time Period: Reign of Dorca Vorbarra, Time Period: Reign of Ezar Vorbarra, Time Period: Reign of Yuri Vorbarra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-03
Updated: 2011-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AellaIrene/pseuds/AellaIrene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Things About Prince Xav Vorbarra, in five double drabbles</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things About Prince Xav Vorbarra

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for suicide in the fifth double drabble.

1\. He's not in love with his stepmother.

No, really. He knows what the galactic trash-tabloids think-- someone took a picture of him with Lucretia, laughing at a ball, and started speculating about betrothals, only to be completely wrongfooted when the Emperor-his-Father announced his betrothal to her, but he isn't. She's not his type. Too tall, and skinny.

Besides, his father is, despite what the trash-tabloids mutter, in love with her. He loved Xav's mother as well, of course he did, but he loves Lucretia, because, as far as Xav can see, Lucretia is smart, and level headed, and has the kind of wicked sense of humour where you don't notice that she's cracked a deadpan joke for half an hour. And they didn't have Yuri and Constantia in quick succession because they needed a spare heir, not with galactic medicine. They had two children in ten months because they could not keep their hands off each other, and Lucretia had an unexpected reaction to the galactic contraceptives. (He will never forgive Yelena for telling him that. He doesn't even want to know how she found out, and he is only grateful that she is now concentrating on snaring Count Vordarian.)

2\. He doesn't want to be Emperor. The same people who think he wants to fuck his stepmother think that he must be smarting at being disinherited in favour of little Yuri, but, frankly, Xav would rather cut his own throat. It would save everyone else the trouble. He's the son of a morganatic marriage, he couldn't hold it even if he was a soldier instead of a diplomat. He's practically a bastard.

He doesn't try to explain this to the curious Betans, who think that Barrayar is barbaric and romantic by turns. Instead, he changes the subject, and dotes upon Yuri and Constantia, sends them gifts and produces pictures whenever someone mentions their names.

He knows that he loves Amandeep when he says to her, “I don't want to be Emperor” and she says, “Well, I don't think I'd want to marry one.”

When Olivia is five, his father decides to declare morganatic marriage illegal, all marriages equal, and calls Xav home to Barrayar.

“You know,” he says to Lucretia, after dinner, the night after the vote. “I still don't want to be Emperor.”

“You'd never have been called back if you did,” she says, and pats his hand.

3\. He never actually gives permission for Olivia to marry Piotr Vorkosigan. It is presented as a fait accompli by Constantia, who doesn't give him a chance to protest, but goes on “And I know that he lets his men kill babies, and took Cousin Ezar as a military apprentice, which shows no real judge of character, as Cousin Ezar is the last person I'd teach to kill people with his bare hands, but he loves her. He loves her, and she loves him, and they'd kill for each other.”

And, because he was friends with Claudine, and because he can remember when Piotr was one of twelve, and now Piotr is one of two, and because Olivia is so shiningly happy, he does not protest. Of course, he tries to persuade Olivia to leave Barrayar, that a military camp is no place to raise children, but she smiles, and nods, and raises little Pavlos Xav, and, in due course, Claudine-Amandeep Varvara, and Aral Edmund, with grizzled sergeants as their nursemaids, moving from camp to camp as the war comes to an end.

He regrets that, years later. No one could have known, everyone agrees, and yet—Xav should have.

4\. The first war he truly fights in-- not kept behind the lines, as he was when his father fought his way to the throne and united the Counts, or away keeping their flag flying for the Galactics, as he did when the Cetagandans came, is the war against Yuri. It sickens him. Everything sickens him. When it ends, when Yuri is dead, and Ezar is on the camp stool, and Serg (born the night Yuri died, as Yuri's daughter Fidelia was born the night Olivia died) has been presented to the people, he kneels on the cold tiles of his bathroom, and vomits, then wipes his mouth, has a glass of water, and goes out to celebrate, because this is the end, damn it. This is the end of it all. There will be peace, now, and rest, and he and Amandeep will raise Padma, and Constantia will raise Serg, and Piotr Aral, and they will all grow up in peace, with nothing to fear from their kin.

The Time of Isolation is gone, and Xav will dedicate his life to making Barrayar a great power, a flower of the Galaxy, and it will never rip itself apart again.

5\. He never meant to be the last. But Piers died in orbit, and Yelena killed herself and twenty Cetas, and Melissa just disappeared. And then Lucretia was murdered at Blachernae, and Yuri went mad when he wasn't watching, and it seems that Constantia did as well, because when no one is watching her, (and how did that happen, how? How did Ezar and Negri let that happen?) she slits her wrists in the bathtub, and Serg finds her, lying still and cold.

And Xav is left. Xav-the-eldest, who intended to die in peace, with his children and grandchildren about him, and he has two grandchildren left, when there were four and a hope, and his sisters and brothers are dead as well, and his wife has still not forgiven him for losing their children, because they had more than a decade to notice that something was wrong with Yuri, and they didn't.

The last of Xav's little sisters is buried in the rain, and his wife stands next to him, holding Padma's hand, and does not lean against him.

Xav shuts his eyes, and hopes that the next generation will have better luck, because his had no luck at all.


End file.
